Peter Shaw Movies
Peter Shaw was an actor/producer in addition to his role as the longtime husband of actress Angela Lansbury. He began his career in front of the screen following World War II, and later found success as a studio executive at MGM. A native of Reading, England, Shaw served in the British army during the second World War. He was signed to an MGM contract by the Charles Feldman Agency in the late '40s. MGM Studios was where the handsome actor met his future wife, Lansbury, and after marrying the actress in 1949, Shaw apprenticed with agent Paul Small, leading to an executive position at the studio and later a career with the William Morris Agency, where he represented such luminaries as Katharine Hepburn and Robert Mitchum. Returning to MGM as head of production in 1964 and then re-joining the William Morris Agency as an international business manager, Shaw launched Corymore Productions in 1987, and it was at Universal Studios that he and his two sons produced Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote, in addition to numerous other made-for-television features. Plagued by failing health in his later years, Peter Shaw died of heart failure in his Los Angeles home in January of 2003. He was 84. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide- 1998
John Schlesinger directed this razor-sharp retelling of the familiar Demon Barber legend, previously a Victorian penny-dreadful by Christopher Bond (The Story of Pearls), a stage play by George Dibdin-Pitt, a Tod Slaughter film (the 1936 Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street), and the 1979 Stephen Sondheim stage musical (Sweeney Todd). Sondheim's musical has been televised in a production with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury heading the cast. This John Schlesinger drama, scripted by executive producer Peter Shaw, is set in turn-of-the-century London where bald barber Sweeney Todd (Ben Kingsley) runs a cutting-edge business with an affluent clientele. He also has several sidelines, including the sale of his murder victims' jewelry, plus a profitable agreement with Mrs. Lovett (Joanna Lumley), who uses an industrial-size meat grinder to prepare her tasty "meat pies" for her unsuspecting customers. American insurance investigator Ben Carlyle (Campbell Scott), tracking $50,000 worth of missing diamonds, encounters corruption throughout the city as he attempts to solve the case. Victorian London locales seen here were actually filmed in Dublin. Shown April 19, 1998 on Showtime. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley, (more)
- 1997
Based on a novel by George Orwell, this satiric comedy concerns Gordon Comstock (Richard E. Grant), an advertising copywriter who fancies himself a poet. While Gordon has published a small volume of his verse that received faint words of praise in the press ("promising" was the most enthusiastic adjective used, in a review that turned out to be written by his publisher), he is convinced that literary greatness lurks deep within him. Deciding that he should begin living the bohemian lifestyle that is the mark of a true artist, Gordon quits his job, even though his friends think he's gone daft and even his publisher Ravelston (Julian Wadham) believes that he's being rash. Gordon's girlfriend Rosemary (Helena Bonham Carter) thinks he's being a bit silly but stands by him, even though Gordon's voluntary descent into poverty has a dire impact on their sex life; Gordon's new digs in a cheap boarding house offer little privacy, thanks to his prying landlady (Liz Smith), and Rosemary lacks Gordon's enthusiasm for love in the great outdoors. Desperate for money, Gordon takes a job in a used book shop (where he sees his own book marked down to three pence...with no takers), and he is forced to rethink his new lifestyle when he learns that one of his increasingly rare sexual assignations with Rosemary has left her pregnant. Originally titled Keep the Aspidistra Flying after Orwell's novel, this film was more widely distributed as A Merry War; it also briefly played under the title Comstock and Rosemary. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard E. Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, (more)
- 1995
A British housewife faces a difficult decision in this realistic drama. Alison is the young wife and mother whose life is turned upside down after her beloved husband, Steve, is involved in a motorcycle crash, suffers massive head trauma and awakens with the mental and emotional capacity of a 5-year-old. Much of the story centers on the mundane aspects of being forced to deal with the loss of her husband as a man and the acquisition of him as a child. Matters are not helped by Steve's overbearing mother. Time passes and things do not improve. Slowly even Steve's closest friends begin withdrawing their support. Eventually Alison is forced to decide whether she will continue to stick by Steve, or whether she will go on without him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This melodrama is set in Ireland and follows bill collector and karate master Taffin as he and other try to keep a soccer field from being destroyed by developers. Soon he finds himself involved in a sticky web of blackmail, political corruption and murder all precipitated by the avarice of a major chemical company. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierce Brosnan, Ray McAnally, (more)
- 1986
- R
Nicolas Roeg directed this dreamy erotic adventure film based on two Australian non-fiction best-sellers -- Lucy Irvine's Castaway and Gerald Kingsland's The Islander. Both best-sellers concern former clerk and waitress Lucy Irvine's response to an advertisement placed by writer Gerald Kingsland in a magazine seeking "a wife for a year on a tropical island." Irvine responded to the ad and, after learning that she would have to pay for the trip to the island of Tuin (between New Guinea and Australia), the not-very-happy couple took off to Tuin for a thirteen-month stay, after which Irvine returned to England alone. The film stars Oliver Reed as Gerald Kingsland and Amanda Donohue as Lucy Irvine. On the island, Gerald and Lucy romp around au natural and try not to get in each other's way. But then Gerald suffers a foot infection and Lucy, in spite of having seafood for every meal, begins to drastically lose weight. Gerald also gets crabby because Lucy withholds sexual pleasure from her new husband. After a year of bliss, Lucy decides to return to the British rat race, while Gerald tries to stick it out in his new island cultural environment. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Amanda Donohoe, (more)
John Hurt plays the British jockey Bob Champion in this true story of how Champion overcame cancer and the rigors of chemotherapy for an impressive personal and professional comeback. Just as Champion is in the middle of a vacation in Kentucky, he finds out he has cancer, and, like others before him, submits to the full, painful treatments of multiple injections and radiation, suffering as much or more from the cure as from the illness (these treatments are graphic). Gaunt and nauseous, Champion also endures realistic meetings with his doctors that hold forth no guarantee of a cure. His eventual remission leads to yet another grueling physical schedule to get him back into shape for the Grand National Steeplechase -- a 30-fence, well-publicized race that offers difficult hurdles for both the horses and their jockeys. If the 115-minutes running time of this film were cut in places, it would create a better, trim and slim, fast-paced telling of an even more focused tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hurt, Edward Woodward, (more)
Directed by TV-anthology veteran Jeannot Szwarc, Enigma has a certain small-screen "feel" to it. Adopting a musical-comedy foreign accent, Martin Sheen plays Alex Holbeck, an Iron Curtain defector who returns to East Germany at the behest of the CIA. His mission is to save five political "undesirables" from the communists. Holbeck runs up against some formidable opposition, namely ambitious KGB agent Dimitri Vasilkov (Sam Neill) and a quintet of highly trained Soviet assassins. Brigitte Fossey co-stars as Holbeck's former love, whom he involves in his escape plans by asking her to romance the susceptible Vasilkov. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Sheen, Brigitte Fossey, (more)
- 1979
- PG
Though made in Britain and Europe, Eagle's Wing qualifies as a Western. Easterner Pike (Martin Sheen) does a lot of growing up in a hurry when he becomes a trapper out-West. By mid-film, Pike is accomplished enough to compete with Comanche chief White Bull (Sam Waterston, there's a masterpiece of nontypecasting!) over possession of a white, wild stallion. The film contains subliminal pro-ecological and pro-tolerance messages, courtesy of its politically-minded stars and the screenplay by future Gandhi scrivener John Briley. Supporting Sheen and Waterston are such never-fail performers as Harvey Keitel and Stephane Audran. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston, (more)
Lionel Jeffries directed Water Babies, a children's fantasy based on the story by Charles Kingsley that incorporates live-action and animation in the tradition of The Incredible Mr. Limpet. In Dickensian London, a 12-year-old chimney sweep's apprentice named Tom (Tommy Pender) has to put up with his boss, Grimes (James Mason), and his heavy drinking. One day, in the home of a client, Tom is accused of stealing the silverware. Tom makes a run for it and leaps into a pool, where he comes across a collection of animated characters. While submerged he helps to rescue "water babies," children held hostage by an eel and a shark. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Mason, Billie Whitelaw, (more)
- 1975
- NR
This made-for-television remake of a taut thriller from 1946 concerns a small-town psycho stalking disabled female victims, whom he shoots with a silencer pistol. His next intended prey is a poor young woman who cannot speak. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacqueline Bisset, Christopher Plummer, (more)
- 1972
Also released under the title Something to Hide, this film follows the slow disintegration of a man's (Peter Finch) life due to the problems brought on by his troubled marriage, his drinking, and the appearance of a strange hitchhiker (Linda Hayden). ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1947
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the title character, a young king exiled by evil conspirators. Forced to live far from his homeland, Fairbanks is harassed by the wicked Henry Daniell, who has been appointed to keep the young monarch from reclaiming his throne. After falling in love with commoner Paula Croset (later billed as Mara Corday), Fairbanks decides to take on the corrupt elements that have ousted him, and he dispatches Daniell in an exciting sword duel stage in an old windmill. Many of Fairbanks' more dangerous stunts were handled by David Sharpe, who received credit as second-unit director. Filmed in black and white, The Exile was originally released to theatres in "Sepiatone", a process which enhanced the film stock with a light brown tint. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nigel Bruce, Fred Cavens, (more)
- 1947
They said it couldn't be done, but they did it: Kathleen Winsor's "notorious", bestselling bodice-ripper Forever Amber actually made it to the screen in 1947 with full censorial approval. Of course, it was necessary to tone down the more erotic passages of Winsor's novel, but the end result pleased fans of the book and bluenosed nonfans alike. A last-minute replacement for British import Peggy Cummins, Linda Darnell steps into the role of 17th century blonde bed-hopper Amber as though she'd been born to play it. Feeling suppressed by her Puritan upbringing, Amber heads to London, finding considerable success as a courtesan (that's the polite word for it). The first real love of her life is dashing soldier Bruce Carlton, who leaves her pregnant and penniless when he marches off to war. Subsequent amours include the sadistic Earl of Radcliffe (a superbly loathsome performance by comic actor Richard Haydn), handsome highwayman Black Jack Mallard (John Russell) and privateer Captain Rex Morgan (Glenn Langan). Surviving the Plague and the Great London Fire with nary a hair out of place, Amber ends up in the arms of no less than King Charles II (wittily portrayed by George Sanders), but true love, as personified by Bruce Carlton, will always elude her. Taking no chances, 20th Century-Fox sent out Forever Amber with a spoken prologue, heard over the opening credits, which explained that the film in no way endorsed its heroine's libertine behavior, and that she would be amply punished for her sins before fadeout time (that prologue has thankfully been removed from current prints). A model of restraint by today's standards, Forever Amber was sufficiently titillating in 1947 to post an enormous profit, far in excess of its $4 million budget. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Ball, Linda Darnell, (more)
- 1939
Originally released in England by British Consolidated, Sons of the Sea was the last film to be distributed in America by Grand National Pictures. Generally cast in villainous roles, Leslie Banks plays the film's true-blue hero Captain Hyde. Alas, Hyde's young son Philip (Simon Lack), though a graduate of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, does not possess the noble purpose of his father, and soon finds himself inadvertently involved with a foreign spy. But with the British Secret Service involved, the villains don't stand a chance. Sons of the Sea was lensed in Dufaycolor, a two-tint process which looked suspiciously like America's Cinecolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Banks, Mackenzie Ward, (more)
This greatest of all Frankenstein movies begins during a raging thunderstorm. Warm and cozy inside their palatial villa, Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Shelley's wife Mary (Elsa Lanchester) engage in morbidly sparkling conversation. The wicked Byron mockingly chastises Mary for frightening the literary world with her recent novel Frankenstein, but Mary insists that her horror tale preached a valuable moral, that man was not meant to dabble in the works of God. Moreover, Mary adds that her story did not end with the death of Frankenstein's monster, whereupon she tells the enthralled Byron and Shelley what happened next. Surviving the windmill fire that brought the original 1931 Frankenstein to a close, the Monster (Boris Karloff) quickly revives and goes on another rampage of death and destruction. Meanwhile, his ailing creator Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) discovers that his former mentor, the demented Doctor Praetorius (Ernst Thesiger), plans to create another life-sized monster -- this time a woman! After a wild and wooly "creation" sequence, the bandages are unwrapped, and the Bride of the Monster (Elsa Lanchester again) emerges. Alas, the Monster's tender efforts to connect with his new Mate are rewarded only by her revulsion and hoarse screams. "She hate me," he growls, "Just like others!" Wonderfully acted and directed, The Bride of Frankenstein is further enhanced by the vivid Franz Waxman musical score; even the film's occasional lapses in logic and continuity (it was trimmed from 90 to 75 minutes after the first preview) are oddly endearing. Director James Whale was memorably embodied by Ian McKellen in the Oscar-winning 1998 biopic Gods and Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, (more)
- 1935
Ronald Colman plays Robert Clive, a true-life 18th century Britisher who works up the ranks to become leader of Britain's military forces in India. Though produced on a superficially lavish scale, the film inexpensively sidesteps several of Clive's more famous battles with Indian insurrectionists, relegating them to offscreen events described by subtitles. The notorious Sepoy Mutiny "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, hardly a costly event to recreate, is faithfully presented. In real life, Clive was ruined by a trial in the House of Commons, after which he suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide. The film tactfully closes on the trial and Clive's reunion with his faithful wife (Loretta Young). Typically jingoistic in its "White Man's Burden" approach to East Indian affairs, Clive of India is best viewed in context of the time it was filmed (1935), when the sun still hadn't set on the British Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
